Do most of us know what our forefathers even did for a living? I guess not but I could make some rather safe predictions about those jobs: they are now obsolete and they were manual.

As my paternal grandfather died in the 1920’s when my father was very young, I am clueless what trade he practiced whereas on the distaff side of the family, my maternal grandfather was a wool grader at a huge wool merchant in Port Elizabeth called Mosenthals. Any further back than that and it is a black hole.

Do you have a clue about your forebearers profession or trade? If you are aware of it, leave a remark in the Post a Comment section

Main picture: A scissors-grinder seen here in 1909 was a street merchant who sharpened the blades of knives and scissors. He would call out in the streets or knock at the doors to try and get business. He worked the stone grinding wheel with his foot using a treadle

Here is a collection of ten jobs which one would no longer see a job opening for.

A Gandy Dancer

A Gandy dancer was an early railroad worker in the USA whose job was to lay and maintain railroad tracks. In England and I presume in South Africa, they were called “navvys.” Their nickname comes from the methodical dance movements of the railroad workers.

An Iceman

The iceman was someone who collected surface ice from lakes and rivers during the winter. It was then stored in ice houses year-round and sold in blocks as a pre-refrigeration cooling method.

Bobbin boys worked in textile mills in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Their job consisted in bringing bobbins to the women at the looms, and then collecting the bobbins that were full with spun cotton or wool thread.

Book peddlars

Book peddlers were travelling vendors. Also known as “book canvassers,” they went door-to-door selling books. For many rural Americans, this was their only way to obtain new reading material.

Breaker boys

A breaker boy was a coal-mining worker in the United States and United Kingdom. They separated impurities from the coal by hand.

Hemp dressers

Hemp dressers worked in the linen industry separating the coarse part of flax or hemp with a hackle. They were also known as hacklers.

Lectors for factory workers

Lectors for factory workers would read books or newspapers out loud to the workers to entertain them while they worked.

Switchboard operator

Until the ’60s in some places, switchboard operators connected phone calls from house to house by inserting phone plugs into the appropriate jacks. George Willard Croy became the world’s first telephone operator when he started working for the Boston Telephone Dispatch Company in January 1878, while Emma Mills Nutt became the first female telephone operator when she began working at the same company on September 1, 1878.

The knocker-up

The knocker-up (usually an elderly man or woman) performed his duties as a human alarm clock until the 1920s. Using a truncheon or a stick to knock on doors or windows, his job was to wake people up in the morning so that they would get up on time.